I'm certain that someone will blame me for bringing up the same topic again, but in my research of the past 9 months that I've been consulting on this topic, it comes up time and again.

In this case, the topic takes the form of the realisation that IMC was treated in the same way as Image Online Design. In both cases they had sound technical plans and followed, as Michael says, the IETF tradition of showing good technical judgement, stable business plans, and an application with obvious merit. In both cases, they were passed over for an incumbant concern with less than desirable technical plans, no business model to speak of, and numerous blank holes in their application maked 'to be determined later'.

It seems that once again ICANN ignores the pioneers with the experience and standing and gives the contract to the applicant who has the most inside ties.

in the essay, where he cites an ICANNWatch article, he links to it using the icannwatch.com address, instead of the icannwatch.org address that is preferred by the people who run the (noncommercial) site itself. This use of .org vs. .com for sites like this is one of the things that figures in my personal assessment of Cluefulness Quotient (CQ) of people or institutions. The less clueful types tend to type in .com for everything, whether commercial or not. Now, do you want somebody of that ilk to be in charge of managing the .org domain?